I sat down at my computer tonight like I do every night after everyone goes to bed and the house is finally quiet. But unlike the typical nights I didn’t open up Autocad and get busy working on drawings or jump onto Facebook to follow everyone else’s life and procrastinate working. I didn’t check my email or the bank accounts. I just sat down and for some reason lost control of my emotions. Today was a normal day; no more stressful than any other, normal fights and fits, one kid went to bed easily, the other required some work, Kristen and I had few squabbles but nothing major.
I could not figure out what the hell was a matter with me. I thought to myself that I haven’t been a mess like this for a long time…for like a year…and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. A little bit of panic set in. I had to find a picture or something so I started digging through the archives of my hard drive with some sense of urgency. I kept going further and further back in time. I could not find what I was looking for because I didn’t know what it was. The process of scavenging through pictures and blog post and old emails was like a horrible series of flashbacks. Like you would image your life passing before your eyes with every thumbnail and preview recalling a time or memory but everything that popped up on my screen was in the last 12 months. And then this image popped up…
And I realized it was what I was looking for and I just flat out lost it. This was one of my favorite pictures of ViviAnne before she was diagnosed. As stupid as it sounds, it’s like my subconscious had booked marked today’s date. I couldn’t remember my life before July 15th of last year.
I continued to dig through emails trying to recover what I was doing, what I thought and cared about because I clearly don’t anymore. I don’t remember a lot of things from High School and College…but there is a logical explanation for that. Why can’t I see back just 13 months ago? The more I think about it the more I realized that I have been doing this for the past few weeks leading up to today. Taking ViviAnne yesterday to meet people and see jobs I work on in 2007, All of us going to Lexington in the middle of a day on a Monday just to stop in at RTA just to say “Hi”, Driving by the old house, Quitting my job (maybe…maybe not), just to name a few. I have been numb for a long time. I miss who she was before all of this. I miss who we all were before this. I hate that Cooper has seen the worst of me. I miss the relationship I had with my wife. I miss our friends. I’m tired of telling everyone we are "fine" and "doing great". I hate who I have become. I WANT MY LIFE BACK!
Sorry for the pitty-party but that is today in my life.
This is me closing a chapter…Tomorrow is the 16th!
